Saturday, May 30, 2015

Wednesday night was Hungary's very first MythOff event!
It was preceded by a lot of excitement, a lot of talking, and a lot of research, which brought our little group of 6 featured storytellers together, and fulfilled one of the main ideas of MythOff: Fostering storytelling relations. Venturing into the world of mythology was familiar to some, and new to others, but everyone put their best work and all their passion into it, and the result was... well, EPIC.

Firts off, we had full house. More than a full house. We were at absolute full capacity in the basement performance space of a very friendly Budapest bar. We had at least 50 people in the audience, probably more. Whew!
We had 3 rounds with 2 storytellers each:

Round 1: The Power of Words

In the Norse corner: Erika Hajós, with the Lay of Hárbardr, told in beautiful verse.
In the Finnish corner: Maja Bumberák, with a piece of the Kalevala about Veinemöinen meeting the giant Vipunen, also told in beautiful verse, and even sung in the end!
Both ladies were eloquent, enchanting, and their prose and verse brought out the very best of not only the original myths, but also their original language and style.Voting question: "If Odin (Hárbardr) and Veinemöinen had a duel of words, who would win?"The prize: A pendant with a bee on it, reminiscent of the legend about how the Greek poet Pindar got the gift of sweet spoken words.The winner: Veinemöinen!

Round 2: Siblings and Deeds

In the Yoruba corner: Szilvia Varga-Fogarasi, telling the story of how the sons of Obatala created the world (and warning against the dangers of consuming too much palm wine).
In the Mongolian corner: Enikő Nagy, with a myth about Gesar rescuing the dying Sun Maiden, before he became a mortal hero.
Both stories touched on the topic of sibling rivalry, and the roles of siblings in family and culture.Voting question: "Which mythical family would you rather belong to?"The prize: A pendant depicting Gemini, named "The Patience of Siblings," reminding its wearer to always be patient with everyone, but especially family.The winner: Everyone wants to belong to the Yoruba pantheon.

Round 3: Deception and Trickery

In the Persian corner: Csenge Zalka telling the Fall of Zahhak (as a "short" prequel to my full-hour show of Zal and Rudabeh).
In the Greek corner: László Gregus, concluding the evening's lineup with the birth and mischief of Hermes, full of wit and humor.
Yuup, we accidentally ended up with a "Greeks vs Persians" theme for the last round. Very historical...Voting question: "If you lost your winning lottery ticket, and Hermes told you it was on one side of Budapest, and Eblis told you it was on the other, and you only had time to check one place, who would you rather believe?"The prize: A tiny mirror, named The Mirror of Clear Vision, revealing all deception and trickery (hopefully).The winner: People would rather believe Hermes than Evil incarnate. I would too.

It was a fun, magical, and all around successful evening. MythOff has arrived to Hungary - and it looks like it is here to stay!

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Once again it's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is "Top 10 books I have in my beach bag this summer." First I was going to skip because I am not a beach bag person (I am not even a beach person, thanks to my pasty luminescent complexion), but this is my third week in TTT and I am thoroughly hooked... Also, I do have some travel-related reading to do this summer.
In July I will be flying to Greece to join dozens of other storytellers at the annual FEST (Federation for European Storytelling) conference on Kea Island. This will be my very first trip to Greece, which is shameful, given the fact that I have an MA in Archaeology... But better late than never. As a storyteller I like to prepare for my trips by... reading. A lot. Of stories.
So, without further ado, here is the reading list I plan to complete by July:

Pausanias: Guide to Greece
The classic of classics; if I left it at home I would probably go straight to Classics Hell for it. When I was in college the Hungarian translation was almost impossible to find - when I came across a hidden copy at the bookstore, I spent my entire semester's textbook aid on it. It is a 2nd century AD description of Hellas, in great detail and a lot of intriguing stories.

Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day
Okay, so this is a fun read, not necessarily a scientific one. It got mixed reviews, and I wouldn't rely on it in serious research... But it sounds entertaining anyway!

John Tomkinson: Travels in Athens
I love reading travel journals, and I was having trouble locating some about Athens. Luckily, I came across this gem of a collection that did all the work for me! Tomkinson compiles excerpts from travel journals and diaries from the 17th century all the way to the 20th from famous travelers, explorers, poets, etc. It is an entire series of books, so wherever you go in Greece, there will be a book for it filled with the adventures of travelers that have gone before you!

Lucian's Dialogues
As my favorite Greek... er, Syrian... er, Hellenistic author, Lucian is definitely taking the trip with me. His Dialogues are some of the most hilarious satire pieces I have read, and they have held up over the past 18 centuries quite well. The volume includes the Dialogues of the Gods (whining about their everyday life and heartbreaks), the Dialogues of the Dead (similarly poignant), and the Dialogues of the Courtesans, painting a vivid picture of the life of women of pleasure in Athens...

On top of these 5, I also have 2 Hungarian books on my list:

1. The travel journal of the Hungarian poet who translated the Iliad, the Odyssey, and a huge chunk of other Greek literature to Hungarian in the first half of the 20th century. He was not only a Classicist and a poetic genius, but also a gentle soul with a great sense of humor. He first visited Greece 25 years after he did all the translation work, and the journal is a touching ode to him finally seeing all the places he spent his life writing about.
(Devecseri Gábor: Epidauroszi tücskök, szóljatok...)
I am taking with me a collection of his poems he wrote on the same trip.

2. The travel journal of one of my favorite Hungarian authors, Magda Szabó, who was also trained in Classics, and on top of writing amazing historical fiction, she also wrote a diary that is both clever and hilarious. Even decades after her trip, I could still use it in Rome to find some hidden gems. I expect the same from her Greek memories... (Szabó Magda: Zeusz küszöbén)

There is no better way to travel than to travel with stories, and with people who have gone before you. Do you have favorite travel literature?

Saturday, May 23, 2015

I am preparing for a performance for Archaeology Day: I'm going to be telling Ossetian Nart sagas at a museum with a great Sarmatian collection (Sarmatians were nomadic people of Iranian origins who lived across the border from the Roman empire, and Ossetians are also people of Iranian origins who live in the Caucasus, hence the connection). I have a dress made and everything!

One of the stories I am working on falls into the tale type called the Shift of Sex (ATU 514), something intriguing I mentioned before when I talked about diversity in storytelling and also about LGBT+ related traditional stories. Now that I am actually working on my own version of telling it, I am doing some serious thinking about how to frame the story.

The summary

In most versions of this folktale I have encountered, the basic story is the same: Family's without a male heir, so their daughter goes out into the world dressed as a boy, and does many heroic deeds. Eventually she rises so high in the favor of the king/community that she is given a leading position/becomes heir. In order to fulfill her role, she is offered a wife, which throws a wrench in the plan, since her secret identity would be outed on the wedding night. Eventually, through blessing or curse, the girl turns into a man, marries the princess, and lives happily ever after.

The question

These folktales were told and recorded decades, often hundreds of years ago. How do I tell the story to make it ring true to people of trans/queer identities today?

The problem

In its current format the folktale suggests that the protagonist can only be accepted and happy if she physically transforms into a male body. Also, because of the different time these stories were born in, the physical transformation is necessary for the marriage to happen. In all versions the intended wife is kept in the dark, and is only presented with the resulting male body, without knowing about the transformation, or having an opinion about it.

The options

1. Build up to the sex change, suggesting it was the girl's own identity/wish/hope/goal all along. Make the male identity (and expression) a personal choice rather than a disguise out of necessity. This is not unprecedented in the tales: At least one version quotes the princess saying "men's clothes have always fit me better anyway." In this case, probably call the protagonist a boy after initially stating that they were born female.

2. Leave out the sex change / male identity and tell the tale as a lesbian love story. This would need more fiddling since the story is still set in a time and place (the Ossetian version anyway) where the protagonist couldn't come out as a girl AND marry another girl at the same time... probably. Female warriors do exist in Ossetian tradition, though.

3. Tell the tale as in option 1, but leave out the actual physical sex change. Have the protagonist come out to the chosen wife and be accepted (and loved). As far as everyone else is concerned, there is no change from what they know.

4. There are probably other options as well. I would love to hear comments and opinions on this.

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these, I do have a lot of classic favorites that don't fall into any of the three. So, since this week's Top Ten Tuesday is YOUR PICK, I decided to make a list of my favorite historical fiction authors, the masters of the genre.
Here we go!

Mika Waltari
An undisputed god of historical fiction. I read Sinuhe on the beach when I was in middle school, and it left a print on my rib cage as I propped it up, but I could not put it down. Some parts of it gave me nightmares, and those were not even the parts about mummification. I also loved Turms the Immortal, and the Mikael and Mikael Hakim series.

Maurice Druon
His Accursed Kings series is insanely well researched. He knew all the details that were to know, down to what tapestry hung in what castle hall. He's been to the depths of archives and came out with an amazing series, likable characters, and even more likable villains. (His mythic fiction Zeus' Diary is also pretty fun)

Gene Wolfe
He is on this list for his Soldier in the Mist series. It is the most challenging historical fiction I have ever read, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. The narrator of the story has amnesia, 50 First Dates style: he forgets every night everything about himself. Hence, he writes a journal to remind himself what happened so far - and that's the journal we are reading. The book, accordingly, is inconsistent, often confusing, but full of genius "aha!" moments - and also Greek place names that have been translated to English, as an extra puzzle to Classics enthusiasts. It was a challenge to read and I loved it.

Henryk Sienkiewicz
Polish author of Quo Vadis (of old Hollywood fame) and other historical classics such as With Fire and Sword and Teutonic Knights. He wrote characters who well not without fault, but especially likable because of that, and great, big epic historical stories worth following through.

Graham Shelby
Remember that Kingdom of Heaven movie where Orlando Bloom pretended to be a blacksmith and Eva Green pretended to be slightly less terrifying than usual? Well, it was supposed to be based on Shelby's Knights of Dark Renown series, telling the story of the Crusades. Except the books are infinitely better, full of adventure and awkward love, and great storytelling.Edward Rutherfurd
Unlike the others on the list, Rutherfurd is here for one book only: London. He wrote an awesome epic telling of the history of one city through dozens of generations of a handful of intertwined families - and then he tried to do it again and again and again, and repeated the success, but never the quality. I tried some of the other books, and gave up pretty fast. London is a masterpiece, though.

Robert Merle
I grew up reading his Fortunes of France series in Hungarian, and was excited to find out that they just started publishing them in English. Fortunes of France is a swashbuckling adventure through religious wars, court intrigue, and a great exciting time of French history, peppered with a cheeky roguish hero and a lot of gratuitous sex.

Mary Renault
I already mentioned her on my list last week: The lady took Greek historical fiction to a whole new level. In addition, she also wrote the most adorable, touching same-sex romance about Alexander the Great in The Persian Boy. My favorite of hers is The King Must Die in which she brought Minoan Crete to colorful and breathtaking life.

Robert Graves
I love Graves for so many reasons. While his work with mythology is criticized a lot in Classics, he knew how to lift mythology into historical fiction. My favorite book of his is probably The Golden Fleece, but he became most famous with I, Claudius (a book largely responsible for me ending up with a degree in Roman archaeology).

Bernard Cornwell
Also mentioned last week: He is a recent new favorite of mine for his Saxon Stories series. An extremely prolific author with a good sense of historical realities, and very likable, human characters. Also, the best battle descriptions I have read in a long time.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Today I'm participating in the Blood, Boobs and Carnage Blogfest! It is a blog hop hosted by Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh and Heather M. Gardner. Participating blogs are supposed to post today about books, movies, shows etc. within the topic of... well, Blood, Boobs, and Carnage (or any combination of the three).

If you want to visit the other participants, you can find the Linky list HERE.

Since my other blog, the MopDog, is covering the Blood and Carnage parts through a selection of Hungarian children's songs, I decided to focus on the Boobs on this one.
WARNING: Nudity. Duh.

There is a folktale type numbered ATU 875, called "The clever peasant girl solves the king's riddles." It exists in many shapes and forms in world folklore. Most often it includes a final scene where the famously smart girl is ordered by the king/prince to appear before him, and he sets some criteria: She has to be dressed but not dressed, bring a present but not bring a present, arrive mounted but walking, etc. I am particularly interested in the "dressed but not dressed" part, since it is solved in various ways in different tellings - and each one says a lot about the particular culture's (and storyteller's) ideas of decency.
For example, in one variation of the folktale, the girl undresses and then lets down her hair that covers her from head to toe, Lady Godiva style, protecting her decency. In another, she puts on a fishing net as a dress, which probably doesn't leave a lot to the imagination (and hence invents a whole new kink).

And then there is the Hungarian version.

In the video below (NSFW) you can see a children's cartoon (!) version of the folktale, titled "The Judge's Clever Daughter." In this version, after solving several long-distance puzzles and annoying the king, the girl is invited with the usual criteria. She shows up with one leg on a goat (mounted but walking), carrying a pigeon that flies away (gift but no gift), and wearing nothing but a bra and an angelic smile. When the king asks her why she decided to cover her boobs but not her "shame," this is the explanation she gives:

"That was given to me by God, hence it is nothing to be ashamed of. These I grew myself."

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Two weeks before flying home to Hungary for the summer I got an email inviting me as a performer to Nespresso's unveiling of a new, Peruvian coffee flavor. Even though the gig was set for the day after I land (with a 6 hour jet lag), it was too intriguing to pass up.
The event took place in the Budapest central library that used to be a palace back in the day, and some of the reading rooms still look like they are out of Harry Potter. I love that building, and used to go to the Griffindor common room Humanities reading room to study before exams:

The theme of the event, obviously, was Peru, and in the vein of "uncovering something new" they asked me to tell a 10 minute historical story about the discovery of Machu Picchu. Since it was a completely new story for me, I headed to the library. I had background in telling Peruvian folktales (my very first paid gig 8 years ago was at a Peruvian exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts), but I was only vaguely familiar with Machu Picchu. First I read a bunch of stuff about the site itself, and then I headed to archive.org to find Hiram Bingham's journals on the discovery.Plot twist: Bingham was not the first person to find Machu Picchu. Not even the first European. Also, being a white dude at the turn of the last century, his journal was peppered with off-hand comments on the "Indian race," and at one point he called the Conquest of Peru a "charming classic." I really had no love for the guy, but a gig is a gig, and the journal did contain some nuggets that I could work with.
So I did this: I painted the image everyone (including me) usually has in their mind about the discovery of a "lost city" - and then I structured the story around disassembling it. Ad one: Hiram Bingham wasn't the first explorer to find the city. Ad two: He wasn't even looking for Machu Picchu. He was looking for Uiticos, the last capitol of the Incas. (Here I also added a bit about the fall of the Inca empire and the Spanish conquest - another interesting rabbit hole I went down, browsing some of the chronicles that have been published in Spanish and English. It balanced out the eurocentric tone of the journals). Ad three: He didn't exactly cut himself through the jungle to get there. There was a road, and the locals also knew the way to the ruins (they just cared more for the terraces that were still great for cultivation).

Since the story was performed at a coffee event, I kept an eye out for coffee-related bits. I lifted a short anecdote from the same chapter in the journal where Bingham describes how the kerosene in their saddlebags leaked all over the food supply, so they had to start a day's mountain climbing journey with nothing but a mug of coffee in their stomach. Lo and behold, there was a hook for the presentation of Peruvian coffee culture, following my performance.
I rounded off the story with the part of Bingham's journals that I could appreciate: His deep admiration and respect for the beauty of nature. I lifted his description of the first time he saw Machu Picchu, and the way he recognized that the world needs to find out about the place, and learn about the history. The moral of the story was not that the explorer was perfect or heroic; it was that sometimes the right person at the right place is the one that sees beauty in hidden places.
Also, coffee. Definitely coffee.

Piecing this story together was an interesting challenge. I like working with historical stories, and you don't get gigs like this very often: The client knows exactly what they are looking for and gives you clear instructions, but also allows enough flexibility for the story to really take shape, and fit with your own storytelling style. Arrangements like this are ideal for both parties, and if you are as research-inclined as me, they are also tremendously fun.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

This is my first attempt at participating in Top Ten Tuesday, a blog hop for book and book related blogs. While I am not book related, I do love to read, and I have recently acquired a taste for blog hops.

This week's theme is Top Ten Authors I REALLY want to meet. Because some of my favorites are sadly not with us anymore, I broke my list down into two parts: 7 authors I hope to meet someday, and 3 authors that I hope to meet someday on another plane of existence.
Here we go (in no particular order):

Gerald Morris
The author of the Squire's Tales series, he is one of my favorite people. Not just because of his writing, but also because his stories are so full of empathy, and genuine love for the legends he adapts. I think we would have a lot of Arthurian nerdiness to talk about. I emailed with him briefly on behalf of a book festival a couple of years ago, and he seemed very friendly and fun.

Marissa Meyer
I only recently discovered her Lunar Chronicles series, and it was love at first read. Those books are a storyteller's dream (how many books do Easter eggs for fairy tale fanatics?!). She is very active on social media and seems like a nice person. There is a lot of love for her from the fandom, and she appreciates it.

Neil Gaiman
Yeah, I know, me and another three million people. I actually met him once, and we had lunch together with the Storytelling department at ETSU when he was on the Unchained Tour. He was very friendly and polite, and a great storyteller. I was so incredibly star-struck that I completely forgot to ask him to sign the book that was in my purse the entire time! My dad will never let me live that one down. I'm waiting for a second chance.

Christopher MooreLamb is probably one of my top 3 favorite books ever. And that's saying something, if you look at my Goodreads page... I went to his book signing in Ann Arbor last year, and he was both friendly and hilarious. I love that he mixes comedy with some serious research in pretty much all of his books. Also, he does Trickster right.

Bernard Cornwell
Also a recent discovery of mine, and I devoured all of his Saxon Stories series within a month. Since historical fiction is my home turf, I would love to meet with someone who does it so well, and takes it so seriously.

Bill Willingham
The author of Fables, my favorite comic book series. Another person that understands and appreciates the nature of stories, and adapts folk and fairy tales in all kinds of awesome ways. I really just want to have a conversation with him about stories over a cup of coffee or something.

Cory O'Brien
He just recently published his second book, but I have been following his blog for years now. Cory is the crazy genius behind Better Myths, a blog that re-tells mythology and legends in ways that will make you laugh until you turn purple. He is also the culprit behind the Internet-famous Norse Crisis Flowchart. My goal is to organize a MythOff one day and invite him as a featured teller.

Planned for the Afterlife:

Mark Twain
Since I have read pretty much every word he's ever written, it would only be fair to finally talk to the guy. Also, I would love to hear some of his mantelpiece bedtime stories.

Michael Ende
My first childhood reading love. Both Momo and The Neverending Story are on my top bookshelf with the classics (and yes, I hated The Neverending Story movies with a passion, because I only saw them after reading the book 10+ times) (also, they are horrible).

Mary Renault
Another role model for me. The proof that you can be a female author in historical fiction without having to do "historical romance" all over the place. She deals with some hardcore things in her books, and applies a lot of empathy and subtle humor to Greek history. Her The King Must Die is a masterpiece, and it was hugely responsible for me going into archaeology. Someone should turn it into a movie, like, right about now.

Many storytellers don't think about diversity in oral storytelling and folktales the same way we talk about popular media. And yet, it is an important topic, and can open up connections to traditional tales for all kinds of audiences. I still remember a Romani girl come up to me after a gig with sparkling eyes, telling me she had never heard a fairy tale before where the princess looked like her!

Folktales and fairy tales are a lot more diverse than people usually account for, and they are also not set in stone. It is a storyteller's responsibility to make them relatable for the new generations, to make sure storytelling lives on.

Monday, May 4, 2015

This was my 4th year participating in the Challenge and my first year co-hosting it. I would like to thank my amazing Legendary Ladies, Corinne, Lanise, Mary and Courtney, for doing a great job during A to Z, visiting blogs and gathering links. You are the best!

In my personal opinion, this one was the best A to Z year I have participated in so far! I realize that is partially due to me taking on a much more active role: The more blogs I visited the more intriguing things I found, the more new friends I made, and the more visitors I got. I also dropped in on a few Twitter chats, which were always a lot of fun. In addition, I was happy to see a lot of my fellow professional storytellers participating this year!

Here are 5 things I got out of this year's challenge:

1. New followers! The number of my followers on Blogger and Twitter is slowly yet surely creeping upwards. I also followed quite a few new people :)

2. New blogging ideas! I am fairy active in blogging about storytelling adventures, but I want to structure more. I am starting a weekly series on this blog for Story Saturdays (#storysat), and I am also going to participate in Top Ten Tuesdays and the Blood, Boobs and Carnage Blogfest (which could have been the title of either of my A to Z themes this year, really...)

3. A translation for Escanor! I wrote about how I wish there was an English translation for this Arthurian romance, and the same day I posted it, lo and behold, the Internet worked its miracle! Thank you all who helped connect me to the lovely lady who is working on a translation! (And blogging about it!)

4. More activity on the MopDog! My other blog is about Hungarian weirdness. My theme of 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary was immense fun to write, and got a lot of visitors who left me hilarious comments. All in all, I am glad I was crazy enough to do two blogs at a time.

5. A whole new repertoire of epics!
One of my goals with the epics theme was to read a large number of sources, and figure out which epics I want to dig deeper into during my mentorship project this year. I have to pick two, but it will probably be more than that on the long run. *drumroll* The first one I picked was the Shahnameh, and I am already working on it. For the second, I am still hesitating between the Lianja epic and Thidrek of Bern. Decisions, decisions! :)

And finally, shameless self promotion:
Check out my book, Tales of Superhuman Powers!
It is a collection of folktales, myths and legends that feature the same superpowers we see in comics and movies every day - everything from invisibility to flight, shapeshifting, and eye laser beams. It includes the stories, the sources, comments and notes, and even lists of pop culture heroes who have the same powers...
Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and McFarland, both in print and ebook formats.

Check out other A to Z participants' Reflections today! Follow the Linky!

Saturday, May 2, 2015

This is my first post in what is hopefully going to be a regular Story Saturday (#storysat) series! It just so happens that this week I am also participating in the Fairy Tale Hidden Treasures Blog Tour, where people post their favorite under-appreciated fairy tales. The tour was the magical brain child of Adam Hoffman over at the Fairy Tale Fandom, and he tagged me to be part of the lineup!
It also just so happens that I promised some of my storyteller friends that I will post a Hungarian tale I told at the Northlands Storytelling Conference earlier this week (if you are story-inclined and in the Midwest, definitely check out Northlands, it is one of the best conferences I've ever been to!). It is kind of a longer story, so I'll have to do a summary version.
Without further ado, here we go!

The Princess' Curse
(Hungarian folktale, collected and published by János Erdélyi in 1855)

Once lived a great king with a famously beautiful daughter; in the neighboring kingdom ruled another king, who had two equally handsome sons. The younger son went to ask for the princess' hand in marriage and they fell in love, but her father said the prince wasn't worthy of his daughter yet - he ordered him to go and travel for three years, see the world, learn, and then come back ready for marriage. The princess was sad that they had to part for three years, but promised to patiently wait.
While the younger prince was away, his older brother tried to seduce the princess for himself, telling her lies about his little brother - but she couldn't be swayed. When three years passed and the young prince returned home, his older brother managed to persuade him that the princess forgot all about him, and was now engaged to someone else.
The princess waited and waited, and grew more desperate; she stopped eating and drinking, and one day she told her father she'd die in 3 days' time if her lover didn't return. She asked her father to bury her in the cathedral's crypt, and have her guarded by armed soldiers.
Three days later the princess died. The kingdom dressed in mourning, and she was laid to rest in the crypt. Just as this was happening, the older prince arrived and was shocked to find out that the princess he hoped to marry was dead. Feeling remorse, he volunteered to stand guard in the cathedral that night.
As the bells tolled ten at night, the crypt opened, and the princess walked out, pale as death and with a terrible look in her eyes.
"You have lied to your brother about me! You broke my heart, and for that you'll die."
She ripped the prince apart, piled his bones in a corner, and went back to her grave.
The next day the younger prince finally showed up, and was shocked to find out that his lover and his brother were both dead. He volunteered to stand guard that night.
At ten, the crypt opened, and out came the princess:
"You believed the lies you were told, and didn't have faith in me. For that you will die!"
She ripped him apart, piled his bones up, and returned to her grave.
Every night from that point on, someone stood guard at the crypt - and every night, they were murdered by the dead princess. The pile of bones grew and grew.

Eventually a former solder called János came into town, and he offered to guard the princess' crypt as long as the king was willing to pay him a bushel of gold for every night. The king was desperate and he agreed, but as János walked over to the cathedral he realized he might have taken on more than he could handle, and decided to run away instead. He got as far as the city walls when he was stopped by an old man. The old man didn't only know why János was running, but also knew how he could survive a night; they agreed to split the gold, and János returned to the cathedral, armed with new knowledge.
When the bells tolled ten, he climbed the tower and hid himself inside the middle bell. The princess came out of the crypt and started looking for him; she almost got to the bell in the middle when the bells started tolling midnight, and she had no power in the world of the living anymore. She returned to her crypt.
The king was overjoyed to see János alive in the morning, and paid him the bushel of gold. János returned to the old man, they split the gold, and the old man told him where to hide on the next night.
When the bells tolled ten that night, János his himself under the pile of bones. The princess emerged from her grave, ran to the bells; when she saw they were empty she started turning the entire cathedral upside down, rummaging in every corner, looking for the guard. She was just about to get to the pile of bones when the bells tolled midnight, and she had to return to her grave.
For the third night, the old man gave János the riskiest task yet: He had to stand in plain sight on the pulpit, with a book. The pulpit had stairs on both sides - the princess would go up on one side, he would run down the other. He had to reach her coffin before her, and hide himself in it.
Everything happened as planned. János locked himself inside the coffin, and held on while the princess screamed, and yelled, and threatened, and begged to get him to come out. The bells tolled midnight, and she screamed even more... but once the tolling ended, the curse broke, and she was her own living self once again.
The king arrived in the morning, and almost died out of sheer joy at seeing his daughter alive. János and the princess were married. On their wedding day the old man showed up, and he drew a sword on the newlyweds - it was a reminder that no one should ever break his given word. János ordered the entire payment of gold to be given to the old man, as a sign of his gratitude.
They all live happily ever after.

I was tagged by Megan Hicks, over at Life, the Universe and Everything. Megan is one of my favorite storytellers, and she was generous to share my ever favorite story from her repertoire!

Friday, May 1, 2015

Last weekend was the annual Northlands Storytelling Conference in Lake Geneva, WI (kind of poetic that storytellers accidentally found themselves flocking to the birthplace of D&D every year). The conference this year was titled Confabulation; it was my fourth time visiting, and definitely by far the best.
It was con-fabulous.
(Not my pun! Not my pun!)

For those of you who have never been to a storytelling conference before (why not?!), and those of you who have not yet been to the USA's friendliest storytelling conference (that's Northlands), here are 10 things I got to do this year and you didn't.
(But you can next time!)

1. Attend Amazing Workshops

The array of workshops offered this year was staggering, and I wished I would have one of those time-turner thingies from Harry Potter so I could be in more places at once. Alas, without one, I had to make hard choices.
I attended Andre Heuer's three-hour intensive on healing stories, and I learned a lot that made sense to me (there are many kinds of story healing and story therapy, and not all of them do). We got to try out some of the techniques in person, and I ended up with a personally designed sequel to Turtle Flies South to talk about my flight anxiety... Talking about animals, Kevin Strauss' workshop on how to tell biologically correct animal tales was also awesome. I learned about parachuting beavers (which really happened!) and I was an armadillo for a while. Still on the topic of making up stories, I took Loren Niemi's workshop titled "Is the Ghost Story Dead?" and 90 minutes later I left with half a vampire tale that I made up on the spot. We all did. It was great fun. (The ghost story is alive and well). The last workshop of the weekend (other than mine) was taught by Lyn Ford; she used several variations of the Tortoise and the Hare to talk about tailoring storytelling programs to the common core curriculum. I left the conference with a pile of handouts, two new story ideas, and a ton of practical advice.

2. Hear Inspiring Concerts
There is a concert every night! All three days of the conference. We got to hear amazing local, regional and national storytellers bring their very best. In the middle of all the intensive learning that happened in the workshops, it was great to sit back, relax, and let the stories wash over us...
(My favorites were probably Jeff Doyle's wild rendition of a Robin Hood tale, and Beth Horner's telling of how she realized her mother was an academic legend. I highly recommend the latter for Women's Centers, universities, and academic conferences.)

3. Have Breakfast with the Next Generation
Northlands has a scholarship for young storytellers under 35, and this year they gave out 9 of them! Next Gen winners get to meet for breakfast on the Saturday of the conference and talk about how they got into storytelling, where they are going with it, and why a sloth petting zoo is a good idea. (Among other things). This year's 8 ladies and 1 gentleman came from many backgrounds, for libraries to environmental education to performance storytelling.

4. Cash in Some Pocket Stories!
This was a new thing this year, and Jeff's idea. We got together for a story swap of 5-10 minute tales, and all tales told and heard were fair game to take and run with! Storytellers tend to be somewhat possessive of their favorite stories, so it was a fun and liberating idea to do a swap where you could go "what a neat tale!... I'm taking it home!" (We ended up with 13 stories told)

5. Hear Fabulous Fringe Performances

Fringes also happened all three days of the conference, but here I'll only highlight one of them: Janice Del Negro's Broken Molds and Alternative Images: Folktales Reimagined. It was a breathtaking one-hour performance of fairy tales re-told through musing about questions that need to be asked: Why would the girl in Rumpelstiltskin marry the king that threatened to kill her? What happened to the Twelve Dancing Princesses after they were found out? Is wishing for all women to fall in love with you really a good idea?... Janice tells her reimagined tales with captivating eloquence, deep empathy, and craft that stays true to tradition and re-creates it at the same time.
No, really, this show needs a fandom.

6. Go to a Ghost Story Swap
We had one! I am not usually one for ghost stories, but this one was fun, in a dark room with an (electric) fireplace, popcorn, and chilling stories. I even told a Hungarian folktale about a vampire princess - I'll post it here tomorrow for Story Saturday!7. See a Flash Mob
More aptly titled: See some of the most illustrious national storytellers of the USA dance to "Fabulous" from High School Musical.
Yuup.

8. Make Up Stories for a Raffle
Again, Jeff's idea. The conference does a raffle every year to support the Next Gen scholarship. This year, we had an array of thrift store items, and we spent Friday morning making up stories to make them more appealing. Anne Harding and I created a great tale about a mysterious hat pin. You could hear it drop.
Boom.

9. Teach a Workshop
I did! I taught a workshop on Heroes (the theme of this year's Summer Reading Program) and it was mostly about diversity in the tales we tell. It is kind of my home turf now, I guess, since my folktale collection is also about superpowers and pop culture heroes in folklore... More about it later, I plan on posting some of the workshop materials online.10. Drink Socialize with Famous Storytellers
There is no conference without networking. You know what happens when you put dozens of storytellers in the same space? Talking happens. Cheerful, enthusiastic, hands-flailing-all-over-the-place, I-didn't-have-a-voice-for-two-days-after, star-struck, ocean deep conversations on life, the universe, and everything. Stories, mostly.